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He looked at ly "Never before such a drea started to speak, but Azijin silenced hih perch

"I think Oreb's right," I told Azijin "Vlug's dream may well illuminate yours-or yours illu, tell us your dreaet, Mysire Horn," Vlug began "Never! When white my beard is, each smallest part I remember"

Momentarily he fell silent, his hands outspread with the palms down, and his wide eyes the color of blue china; but he was a born relater of tales, whose pauses and intonations caeant says it is I sleep, but asleep I am not Up and down, up and down, a man and woman walk Wise and kind he is, but stern Unhappy, discontent she is His counsel she wishes, and it he gives No, no, not what he suggests she will do Herself she will kill Soon Very soon"

Vlug spoke to Azijin "Jahlee and her father perhaps it was, but why?

"Mysire, once around hter before me stood So beautiful!" He raised his pale eyebrows in tribute to her, when reat light behind her there was A great wind also A cloak she wore, very big and black This cloak the wind blew" His hands suggested its flutteringher knees without such a wind it must reach To lay hold of me with Scylla's hundred arms-"

Oreb squawked and fluttered, perturbed

"Atreally it is, mysire?"

I shookto recapture it "So beautiful she is A dream? So beautiful Her lips, her eyes, her teeth My spirit flahter Jahlee is, mysire, in my dream"

I asked whether he could recall how she had been dressed, other than the cloak

"Not" He glanced at Azijin "Her gown I don't remember, mysire No hat, or only a very sirl" Oreb dropped from his perch to "

"Good girl!" he insisted

"Although you can't re, she was in fact dressed?"

He glanced at Azijin, as before "Oh, yes, er, tapped it with his left, and said, "Young he is, mysire" I doubt that he is thirty himself

"Silk talk," Oreb declared in a decided tone

"I suppose he h time for me to interpret your dreaht further the interpretation, however, and so ht bacon and coffee What do you say we rouse my son and your other troopers, and find out what this inn can offer in the way of breakfast? Jahlee has been tired and ill-no doubt you've noticed it With your leave, I'll throw a few ive her a couple of extra blankets If she wakes up before breakfast is ready, she can join us If she doesn't, sleep uards, who allowed Jahlee to leave their roo was dark and silent, but we opened the shutters-finding that it had snowed heavily during the night-and lit every candle in the place fro remains of the parlor fire Azijin took it upon himself to wake up the innkeeper and his wife, but returned rubbing his knuckles and looking disgusted "Sick they are, this they say So itwill prepare If their food he wastes, on their own heads they brought it You can cook, Vlug?"

Vlug swore that he could not

"Then you I teach A legerman must cook, and shoot too Zwaar, Leeuw, to the horses you must see Well do it! When we have eaten, I will inspect"

Hide said, "I'll take care of ours, Father My father's a fine cook, Sergeant I'm sure he'll help you in the kitchen, if you ask hi a pastry of nuts and apples, approving the cheese (these people see hearth cakes while the sausages and a ground pork and cornood food it is," Azijin declared when everything was ready "For good a kitchen like my mother's we need, and my mother to cook But worse than this in an inn I have eaten What is it in these little cakes for us you make, mysire?"

"Honey and poppyseed" I offered a scrap of the pork and cornmeal mixture to Oreb to see whether he would like it

"Soda, too Salt, and three kinds of flour Those I saw you mix If another I eat, dreaive?"

"Notinsisted "The finest of my life it was, and e; he had been in charge of them and seemed proud of them

"In a bed on the wall to sleep, and the bedroom has no roof to see!" Azijin shook his head and forked e onto his plate

Hide's lips shaped the here?

"You have askedthe pork and cornmeal mixture for myself "It would be easy for inally planned to do It would also be dishonest, as I decided while ere co under duress You have asked me to help you understand what has happened to you I have said I will, and am therefore bound to do it faithfully Are you aware that the spirit leaves the body at death?"

Two nodded Leeuw said, "With gods to talk"

"Perhaps In some cases, at least I eant Azijin, and you, Leger, particularly-to accept the fact that it can, and does, leave it at other times as well"

I waited for their protests, but none came

"Let me illustrate my point A man has a house where he lives for some years with his wife They are very happy, this man and his wife They love each other, and whatever else o amiss, they have each other Then the man's wife dies, and he leaves the house in which he has had so much happiness It has becoods, restores her to life, he has no wish to see that house ever again A said, "So I think," and Azijin, "Tothe body at death The body is the house I mentioned, and life was the ho made it a place of warmth and cooes to the gods, as Legerested, perhaps only out into darkness For the moment, it doesn't matter My point is that he leaves the hoo," Oreb declared He had been hopping around the table, cadging bits of food "Go Silk"

I told him, "If you mean you wish to die when I do, Oreb, I sincerely hope you don't In Gaon they tell of dying , so it will acco Sun their rulers went so far as to have their favorite wives burned alive on their funeral pyres When I die, I sincerely hope no friend or relative of mine will succumb to any such cruel foolishness"

Zwaar, who had been silent until then, said, "When the spirit goes a man dies, I think"

I shook h the heart Or because he suffered sogested toup an important point-that the spirit is not life, nor is life the spirit And another, that the two together are one A husband is not his wife, no more than a wife is her husband; but the two in coh the man in my little story left his house once and for all when his wife died, he had left it arden, perhaps, or gone to the market to buy shoes In those cases he left it to return"

Hide said helpfully, "The spirit can leave the same way, can't it, Father?"

"Exactly We have all had daydrea the new boat we're in fact building, for exa horse we don't actually possess Most of the dreaht are of the saht name for them There are others, however Dreams-we call them that, at least-which are in factbody by the spirit, which left it for a while and went elsewhere"

Azijin was grinning, although he looked a bit unco, Leeuw, and Zwaar heard me ide eyes and open ," I told Azijin "Your sprits departed while you slept, and went to sleep in another place There Vlug's spirit-"